Topic: Is it worth mining? (Read 3126 times)

Actually this would not be true.  Look at CPU/GPU mining it is very very small money.   You will not get rich off of CPU/GPU.  I know you meant it as a joke... but it would take a massive botnet to do this.  And you are looking at serious jail time (in most countries).

Chances are you will not even get enough for bail if you did this.  Let alone paying a lawyer for when you are caught.  Again horrible idea even as a joke.

Lol mining is worth it if you make a Bitcoin mining virus.
Highly profitable if you infect enough PCs.

I don't know on dragon miner's.  They are getting close to end of life.   They run hot and are not efficient.  Going with S3 would be much better idea with free electricity.  Also I think S3 will have more value if you ever to to sale it say 6 months from now and upgrade.

S5, SP20, Avalon 4.1 all have held value pretty well with new miners slowing down.  So if free electricity it will be harder to justify but they really are great machines.

I have free electricity and have been thru this debate many many times,

If you buy expensive newer miners then it will take longer to reach ROI but you can host more of them since the available power is capped. The ROI on the S7 is like 8 months or so.

If you buy older and cheaper miners you have a shorter time of getting ROI but you won't make alot of money. The ROI on the S3 is like 2-3 months or so.

The more into the future you go, the higher the uncertainly. Price of BTC and Difficulty is easier to predict in 3 months then in 8 months.

So you need to find a balance in between.

Personally I wouldn't buy the S5 or SP20, they are overpriced at the moment. Get the S2, S3, Dragon Miners, KNC Jupiters, etc.

You will make the same amount of money in 6 months with an S3 as you will with an S5 but the S3 is 1/4 cheaper.



I only made money with my miners because I profited off somebody else's loss. I only bought miners which were no longer profittable due to electricity cost or I bought them because the price of BTC was crashing and Difficulty was skyrocketing and the sellers panicked and sold to me.

Only way to make money in this business. Its a zero sum game pretty much. You're gains will be somebody else's loss.

That's why I wouldn't buy an S7, because our loss will be their gain.

I think that the problem with the S7 as i so vocally say is that its too expensive, so you *will* ROI it but it could take a very long time. Meanwhile you can get the same hashrate with 3 S5's for less than half the price, which means you may ROI three pr four times faster because of the difficulty will be lower during your term.

S3 and even S1 would do great. The upside of S1 is you can get them by the bucket, but it make for more management. The upside for both S3 and S1 is you can fit antennas so you can spread them around the house as quiet housewarmer for the winter.

You will ROI.  But "free" electricity in many cases are better off with a generation old gear or so.   They don't need the most efficient as it is free.

Lets say S3 or S5 likely are a lot better choice for "free" electricity.   They need to get cheapest per GH/T on buying.  The efficiency of newest machine does not mean near as much to them as it does for someone paying .10 cents.

So wait, reading through this thread, even if you have a free electricity and you buy the latest miners, S7 for example, you will not be able to get any profits and ROI? How the heck is this possible?

if you have free electricity and already hit roi, you free to mine until bitcoin is zero in value, nothing can stop you anymore

everyone that has free electricity has already roied at this point, it's a downhill road for them

Perhaps. What if the value of bitcoins rises due to the block halving next summer? Bitcoin will always be interesting, if not profitable. What will miners do then, oh hey, you all get half the money you used to get.

i Don't think mining is profitable now and next year the chances are mining will be decreased to half because people started realising that ROI is not good in mining.
Even if you got free electricity you need a superfast ASIC miner and then also you will mine a lot less due to competition and high difficulty so my advice is look for alternative ways of earning bitcoins.

We don't even know the price of that miner.  At first they will be looking for data centers wanting multiple.   They will find a market to. 

It will be a while till you can buy one I predict if you want just one.  Even then it's likely pricey for all it provides.

The miner you should buy is this one:

http://www.spondoolies-tech.com/products/sp50

110 TH/s ± 10% is a lot of mining power, it have nice potential.

I think that if you have FREE power for 4 years, that should be enough time to get quite a large profit. Best place to get a miner would probably http://bitmain.com/en.html. 

I agree, which is why i don't think the S7 will maintain its price. This may sound counter intuitive but here is why;

When the S5 first came out, the price per GH was 0.3$~ After all this time, the S5's are still reasonably worth something. But is that because units don't devalue that much or because the S5 was properly priced from the start? S5's are about 0.2$~/GH now.

Now look at the S7, already went down... 100$? And the Price per GH is over 0.4$ door to door. About double a S5, and half electricity consumption does not mean double the value.

I would value the S7 at 0.3$/GHs, no more. Each GH return much less last year, when S5's were introduced, yet the price per GH on the S7 is much higher.

Why? Because Bitmain has monopoly.

We do not know what will happen at halving.  Prices could go up or yes many miners will have to stop.   We cannot say with any certainty this far away.

One thing to keep in mind is the selling of the machines.  Even if someone has higher electricity they can mine with it for quiet a while.   S7 will still hold value at around having, they might have to sell to ROI.  But with owning a newer miner the good thing is value is better.  Look at SP20, S4 S5, Avalon 4.1 to show the trend of miner still having good value even though they are not the most current.

Thanks in advance for what? do you need more information? Ask away, and As QuintLeo just said;


My reason for disrecommending the S7 is exactly that. Even in ideal mining condition, such as 0.05$/kWh ~ and 2-4% diff increase from now on, no more 5% and such, no pool fee and no BTC price plummeting, the S7 will not ROI by halving, at which point any profit after that is dubious at best.

that is why miners are decreasing instead of an increase because of the continues expenses and maintenance they give for their miners, but that doesn't mean you will not ROI because of it. there are still a few who is still reaching ROI because of mining.

I think not profitable there are many expenses to be  consider before puting your own mining and need big budget setting  up.

You won't make a substantial income from mining, because you need to constantly upgrade your equipment.
Unless you are willing to invest like $100000.

Well in the year 2009 you can mine BTC200 BTC in just a few days in the year 2014 BTC1 BTC is equal to
98 years that is why ASIC made Machine miners! and you need to join a mining pool! 

The S7 itself doesn't seem to be a bad miner - it is the "no bloody way to achieve RoI on it under current conditions for pretty much anyone" PRICING that is the bad part.

OK Thanks for the advice, I would like to check the marketplace if I could get some great stuff there.

But even if S7 is not that great at the moment, as a miner there is a possibility to profit
if you know the right place, time, and equipment you might need to keep on track with your bitcoin.

thanks in advance  

Not right now, thats the only place where you can get home miners at the moment from a manufacturer. There's tons of resellers selling overpriced stuff but i can't recommend that. Your best bet is the marketplace here, buy used from another user.

So if you only want to buy "new" there's Bitmain at the moment with the S7 which is not super stellar imo.

In a "free" electric situation, the only reason to worry about efficiency is to be able to maximise your hashrate - but if you don't have a lot of cash available to buy miners with, buying older lower-efficiency miners might make sence as they tend to COST less per GH, 'till you start getting close to the limit on your free electric supply.

You are probably right, well that's the only site I know where to buy quality mining Rig if you have other sites that you might know please share it here so he could choose if not the cheapest maybe near to his country so he could decide thanks  

Thats too expensive now, try to buy them for under 300$, especially if they're not local as you will have to pay shipping and maybe border fees.


Well we're talking about mining in general, if i think about my situation, i very much doubt my 6 gpu and my 10 outdated miners will all break. If half break, i'll still ROI. But i guess it could happen.

The only way i see it happen unless you're actually the most unlucky guy on the planet is some catastrophe befalling your place. Like a fire or a mega surge after a lightning strike. In which case i believe the surge protector guarantee might cover it(?) and in case of a fire or such sinistre, there's insurance for that.

But i guess its not 100% guaranteed.

With "free" electricity you don't need the newest most efficient gear.  For example S7 if free electricity... you dont really care about the efficiency to a point more the power.

But used miner market there are some good miners going for decent rates.  For example S3's depending on price and if OP has PSU's or needs to buy I think you would be suprised on ROI on used gear.

New gear is for those with high electricity prices really.   It allows them to mine.  And it is still possible to ROI just takes certain variables to happen.

If you have to ask. Most likely no.

You need a good plan. A large amount of funds to buy in bulk for cheaper rates and cheap power.

with free power for the next 4 years i think that you can go for mining, ROI will take you some time ofc, but in teh end i think is still profitable, the free power for the next 4 years is a huge advantage for mining. definitelly i will go for it if i was under your situation.

Another one point is if you have money to build your mining rig, but thats another question

s7 do not doubt, 4.86th looks pretty good for me.

According to me NO. I will suggest to not buy nothing and to leave away your dream to mining. It is an work that have doubt profit. With the price of hardware which needed to mine (which is to high) and with the difficulty which can be increased like it want your profit will be always in query.

 If the miner dies before it achieves RoI.

The only miners Bitmain are currently selling are the 2 different S7 batches, and POSSIBLY a few leftover U3s.

 S5's were sold out months ago, even the "used" ones.


 I suspect they will introduce a "S7+" model at some point, possibly fairly soon, to try to compete with the Spondoolies SP50 - the engineering for a "S7+" has already been done, just a matter of building them.

I suggest using AntMiner S5 with the price of $370, but currently Discontinued Shipping if not available in your country
then I suggest to go to this site https://www.bitmaintech.com/product.htm to see what miner is still available, but you know other
sites that has available miner then stick to your trusted one.

Happy Mining

No i mean S5s. Since what i'm replying to is someone saying it can be possible to NOT roi in FOUR(4) YEARS with free electricity, you'd have to do a majorly bad investment in which miner you pick and which price you take them at to NOT roi in 4 years.

I just don't see how you can not roi in four years with free electricity.

the chances of profit with free eletro is  very high, as a miner u gotta be crazy not to do it. u just gotta be smart and not buy miners when the mining arms race is happening.  let the dust settle. unfortunaly  its happen right now.  so dont rush, study up first, practice with some low budget gear just to get a feel for what happens. and then strike hard  when u think its a good time.

I agree with the "outdated hardware" strategy. A lot of slower ASICs to stack up hash power. Your operational costs will be small, but initial capital matters.

Remember:
1) The facility needs to have the electrical infrastructure to handle potentially high load. i.e. a 15 amp breaker can only handle so much
2) Waste heat - be able to vent (or use) the waste heat. I was running four Antminer S4s and they heated 1200 sq feet in northern NY through the winter...it can be a bonus or a huge pain in the ass.

Haven't been digging it but know that you can also merge mine Bitcoin with other coins, Namecoin being the most well-known, maybe it can help with the ROI.

I think you mean S7's.  But the argument there is efficiency that it could mine twice as long as lets say S5 on same electricity remaining profitable.   It in most cases will be more then 6 months.  3 and even 6 months are pretty much done unless "free" electricity and old gear like S3 which have gotten very cheap considering you still get a good miner.

But long term S7 (as long as you dont have crazy VAT, or high electricity) should ROI if difficulty does not go crazy.   Some ROI might include selling the machine to get that ROI.  But likely with mining and selling I see most who did the math before hand ROI.   Like I said if you have 25 percent vat or .15+ electricity then yes most likely you lose. (And were getting close to winter so I'm sure some will say a little loss is for heating rooms but that highly varies)

Well if you buy S5's for 1.5k USD a piece, then i guess its possible, but unless you do a terrible investment, i'm pretty sure you can ROI any current miner and old gen decent miners like S1/2/3/4/5 SP's and Avalon.

It is actually possible to not reach ROI even with free electricity.
I'm fairly certain any method used 4 years ago couldn't even get a single share in a pool or solve a block alone right now.

However, unless you buy a really outdated miner or difficulty goes up incredibly fast, people should be able to ROI in about 6 months (very rough estimate).

Ahh I see, it makes sense that you would have to take other variables into account (like heat and bandwidth(?) I would assume). I've been in Bitcoin way too long to still have relatively no clue on mining, so trying to teach myself a little bit

Asking questions like this regularly mean that you're not prepared to consider mining. You need to be aware of every cost involved before you get into a project. Mining is extremely competitive and extraordinarily saturated at this point. You may be better off mining alt-coins and selling them for BTC.

Just make sure that if you get any long-term results before breaking even, you check whether the calculator being used takes the reward halving come half-way-ish 2016 into account; this one does not at this time.

If you have free electricity, you could safely go with a proper rig of GPUs, but this discussion belong in another forum section.

So for the limit of this topic, the only way to go is ASIC, the question is which ASIC which raise the following questions;

Your location;
Outside Temp;
Housing condition;
Electricity cost;
Electricity grid capacity

What gear do you suggest doing this with?   Mining altcoins is much easier said then done.

Most of R/D goes into bitcoin (sha) miners.  The best chance of ROI is likely with a btc asic not some old scrypt asic.

I think you might have more luck mining some altcoins rather than Bitcoin to make any profit.

Tell us more about your mining capacity, and your location.

The way i would do it right now is grab all the S3 for under 80$ i can. Grab all the S5 for under 250$ and mine them for the next year. Wait until the halving to see what happen. But these generate Heat and Noise. So free electricity is not the only concern.

Give us more information.

Some are pretty anti-mining.   Best way to calculate ROI is something like this - https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/calculator

OP add up all costs including if you have VAT, etc.   That will help you see how long a miner would take to pay off.   Also when you say 4 years are you talking about some kinda student housing where you just have one room?

In 4 years with free electricity, one still may not make their money back? I'm personally not a miner, and I understand it's too late in the game for the general population to get involved... but that sounds ridiculous. With free electricity, OP still shouldn't expect to turn a profit?

Even if you have free electricity ROI is hard to reach if you spend money for miners

Hey guys.

I am currently living in a place where I will get free power for the next 4 years. With the price of miners at the moment should I buy a miner and start mining? If so will it be profitable?

If so what type of miner should I buy?

Thanks